Two Army soldiers were injured with one having been knocked unconscious in an accident involving a tank gun barrel while working on the tank at a military base in Pingtung County on Thursday.
According to the 8th Army Corps Command, the two men belonged to the Kaohsiung-based 564th Army Brigade which is under the 8th Army Corps, with one of them identified by his last name Chuan (?) having lost consciousness.
The other service member, a sergeant surnamed Chiang (?), was hit in the abdomen but is currently in stable condition, the brigade said.
At the time, the two were carrying out maintenance work on a CM-11 tank, as the brigade was in Pingtung to participate in an upcoming joint military exercise. The tank turret suddenly moved, causing the gun barrel to knock Chiang onto the ground while pinning Chuan against the body of the tank.
The brigade suspected the cause was due to an "abnormality in the turret stabilization system," but there was no further clarification as to whether the tank was manned at the time or how the gun barrel had moved on its own.
The 8th Army Corps Command said a special task force would be set up to investigate the cause of the incident.
Lin Feng-min (???), political warfare director of the 564th brigade, told reporters that the two men had been transferred to the Kaohsiung Armed Forces General Hospital from a local hospital in Pingtung.
The 24-year-old Chuan lost consciousness when the accident happened and is now receiving extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, Lin said.
A physician at Fangliao General Hospital's emergency ward who first tended to Chuan said the patient had bruises on his chest and back, but there were no obvious open wounds.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel